


A Painful Transformation

by Fooshi



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Beauty and the Beast AU, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Cupid and Psyche AU, East of the Sun West of the Moon AU, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Experienced Dedue, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hair Braiding, Hand Jobs, Honestly any prince turns into a beast and then someone falls in love with him type story, I mean Dimitri is The Beast, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, Sorry furries, There's also sex but it's when they're both humans, There's so much trauma, Virgin Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, canon typical trauma, furry elements?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:29:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29523654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fooshi/pseuds/Fooshi
Summary: “My transformation began not too long after that day. It started with a sense of savagery coming over me, a beastial nature awakening within my soul. Then the claws, the elongated teeth… By the time the transformation became somewhat noticeable to people around me, I could hardly stand the company of other people anyway. So I retreated to my family’s abandoned hunting lodge without a word and let the world presume me dead. As you can see, I have only become more monstrous since then. I assume one day I will become unable to speak at all. I will lose my mind and become an animal completely. I hope that day might bring oblivion. No more memories. No more ghosts. Maybe my lion’s mind will maintain impressions of past hurt. Maybe I will have a lion’s anger. Even so, that would be preferable to the way I am carrying on now.” Dimitri pushed away the basket of food. “I have lost my appetite. Good day, Dedue.”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22
Collections: Dimidue Big Bang 2021





	A Painful Transformation

**Author's Note:**

> I finally finished this! It is my longest fic to date. I worked really hard on it, so I hope you enjoy! This fic was written for the 2021 Dimidue Big Bang, and the artist I collaborated with is none other than the amazing @konsolis on Twitter. Be sure to go check out all their wonderful art.
> 
> Also, the last 5k or so of this fic were written on posting day in an absolute frenzy, so please excuse any mistakes or typos. I'll try to go back and fix them later.

Dedue hadn’t been in Faerghus long when the storm hit. He’d been visiting the land that was once Duscur, collecting spices to dry and then use in the food he sold, as well as visiting old family graves. It was a detour off of his usual vending route, but he went at least once a year anyway. He felt like a bird, migrating home. Or maybe he was a ghost, walking the same pathways over and over again, mingling with the other dead.

He’d sold a fair amount in Fhirdiad, which made sense. The weather was cold and his food was hot, plus the big city meant there was plenty of foot traffic past his traveling stall. He had just begun on the road out of the city when the first flakes of snow caught in his eyelashes. It was nice. Pretty. He was bundled up nicely and wrongly assumed he could get to the next town before the snow got too deep for his cart’s wheels and the road too icy for his horse’s hooves.

It wasn’t long before he couldn’t feel his nose anymore. He couldn’t see too far past it, either. There was just an endless white blur, occasionally interrupted by the slightly brown blur of a too-close tree. His horse shouldn’t be out in this weather. She could break something. His cart could break, for that matter. Honestly, Dedue probably wasn’t safe out in a storm like this either, no matter how snuggly dressed he was.

It was only the sound of creaking metal that let Dedue know there was something nearby, something sturdy and manmade. It wasn’t much to go on, just a sound on the wind, but it was the first hint of shelter Dedue had. It could be the only chance he’d get.

So he slid out of the driver’s seat on his cart and slowly led his horse off the road in the direction of the sound, still dragging the cart behind them. The snow was well past his ankles now. In one hand he held his horse’s reins. His other hand was outstretched in front of him, weary of any unseen obstacles in his path. With each step he tested the ground in front of him. Please be even, he thought. Please be sturdy. He knew if he fell now, or if his horse did, he was as good as dead. The cart he could replace, though it would cost him all his savings. But the horse he needed to get him out of here after the storm passed.

Eventually his hand struck something solid and metal, a pole. He squinted his eyes and could make out the outline of many poles close together, the outline of a gate even taller than he was. The open gate swung in the wind, making the rhythmic creaking noise Dedue had been following. He wondered why the gate had been left open, but didn’t let that wondering stop him from moving forward and forward and forward and forward until he saw a silhouette, a human silhouette, in the distance.

“Hello?” Dedue shouted, unsure if his voice was carrying at all or if it was whisked away on the wind. “Are you alright? Do you need help?”

Dedue trudged toward the figure, slowly digging one footprint after another into the deep snow. In the corner of his eye another figure appeared, then another.

“Hello? Who are you?” Dedue yelled, freezing air claiming his tongue and his throat like knives. He kept trekking closer and closer until the figure was close enough to touch. So he did touch it. Stone. A statue. Was he standing in some sort of garden? A garden in the middle of the woods… His heart leapt at the thought that this could be some noble’s private garden, perhaps a second home they kept for hunting season. If there was some sort of house nearby he was saved.

Further and further he went, so slowly past all the statues until his foot met stone. Stairs. He unhooked his horse from the cart and gently coaxed it up the snow-coated steps. Luckily they were short, but the process was painstaking for the poor, bewildered animal.

“You can do it girl,” He murmured, unsure if she could even hear him above the howling storm. “Just a little further, come on.”

The relief Dedue felt when she reached the top was immeasurable. It was easier to see now, this close to the building. It truly was a gigantic building, with a gigantic door not too far ahead. The overhang shielded this area from the snow just a bit, but it was enough to make Dedue’s progress quicker. He made for the door as quickly as he could and pounded on it.

“Hello?” He bellowed at the top of his voice, praying that he might be heard. Perhaps there was a housekeeper or ghost staff kept on at the manor during off season? “Please, let me in, I beg of you! I was caught in the storm!”

He banged and banged until the side of his fist ached, but there was no response. He hated to even think it, but he was at the point where he needed to break in or freeze to death out here on the front steps. If he could find a window, he would probably be able to break it. He would save his own life first, then think of a solution later. Doubtless the owner of the manor would not take kindly to a man of Duscur breaking into his home, but maybe if Dedue left money for repairs, or fixed the window himself before the owner ever returned…

Dedue rattled the handle on the door as a last attempt at entry, and to his surprise he found the door had been unlocked this whole time. Not stopping to question his good fortune, he pushed onward, throwing open the door and rushing in. He bought his horse in behind him, as well. He couldn’t leave her outside and there was no way he was going to blindly wander the grounds with her in hopes of stumbling upon a stable. 

Dedue closed the door firmly behind himself to keep out the cold. When he turned around he found himself in a grand entryway and was struck anew by the size of this manor. He had known it was huge, but even that now seemed an understatement. The entryway alone was larger than many houses he’d been in. He led his horse to the central grand staircase and tied her to the bannister for safe keeping.

“You’ve been so brave tonight, girl,” He told her, petting her on the nose as he did. “I’m going to see if I can find a fireplace to get us warmed up. Then I’ll be right back for you.”

The manor wasn’t as cold as the outside, to be sure, but it was still a drafty place in the dead of winter. Dedue and his horse could survive the night here, but a fireplace would certainly help make things more comfortable. If he could find a linen closet with some blankets he could use, maybe even a kitchen to make some tea... The thought made him seem even more like an interloper, even more like he was breaking and entering, but having come this far he figured he might as well try to warm himself up and then deal with the consequences later.

It didn’t take him long to find a large sitting room with a fireplace in the far wall. Dedue approached. There was, luckily, unburned wood already inside. Dedue wondered how long it must have been there, and if it was damp or moldy from disuse. He looked to the side, wondering if there happened to be a spare supply of firewood inside. What caught his eye instead was a thick, fur-lined blanket draped over the armchair by the fireside. Without hesitation, Dedue picked it up and wrapped it around his still shivering shoulders. It was large enough to work as a horse blanket in a pinch.

At that moment Dedue heard a distressed whinnying coming from back in the entrance hall, followed by a low but clearly recognizable growl.

_ Wolves _ , Dedue thought automatically. His heart stuttered in his chest.  _ Did I leave the front door open? _

Perhaps it would have been wiser to run, or to barricade himself in the room, safe from danger. But self-preservation had never been Dedue’s leading instinct. He couldn’t leave his horse to certain death. So he grabbed the heaviest looking candelabra within reach and ran back toward the increasingly upset neighing in the distance. Best case scenario he could simply scare the animal off. Worst case scenario he’d have a few new scars to add to his collection. He didn’t bother thinking of the possible scenarios that were even worse than that.

When he ran into the entrance hall he saw his poor horse rearing back in terror, kicking her legs out at a black mass slinking along the ground in front of her. It seemed to be circling her, predator to prey. The shadows of the dark hall draped over the creature sheaves, making it hard to distinguish against the dim backdrop.  _ Could that be a wolf? _ He’d never seen one such a deep color before, but surely they must exist.

Dedue skidded to a stop as he tried to peer through the veil of darkness and discern what type of animal he was dealing with. The animal’s head snapped to attention and a single blue eye flashed at Dedue from the depth of fur. At least he had gotten the animal’s attention away from his horse. Slowly, the animal began stalking toward him. Dedue raised the candelabra above his head. He was prepared to yell, to make as much noise as possible, and chase the wolf out the front door. Dedue glanced at the door out of the corner of his eye. It was closed.

_ What? Then how did the wolf…? _

The animal passed through a moonbeam just then, and Dedue suddenly realized just how mistaken he had been. First of all, the creature’s fur was not pitch black, as Dedue had first assumed. When it caught the light, the animal’s coat shone a deep, rich, blue. Secondly, this animal was no wolf. Its head passed through the shaft of light first, illuminating a dense mane that framed a face Dedue had difficulty parsing. It was an animal’s face, to be sure, but something about it… 

Was this a lion? Is this how all lions looked? Dedue had never seen a real one, only the tapestries hung throughout Faerghus to memorialize the now deceased royal line. Lions had been a symbol of the royal family for generations, though Dedue had no clue why they were chosen for the royalty of a country as northern and frigid as this one. Dedue had barely wrapped his mind around the head of the beast before the long, thin tail was passing through the moonbeam. Then the creature slipped into the blackness again. 

It was almost upon Dedue now. He had no idea how to stave off a lion attack. Try to yell and scare it off as he would a wolf? Or would that only provoke the lion into savagery? Dedue felt rooted to the spot in indecision.

And then the lion stood.

It rose slowly, unfurling itself to the full height of a man, looking as perfectly balanced and poised on two legs as it had on four. It was still shorter than Dedue, and thank goodness for that, because it was already imposing enough while looking up at him with that ferocious glower in its eye. Dedue looked down to meet the creature’s gaze and surveyed its frame. Flames, the creature was wearing clothes! Finery! Tattered, dirty finery, but finery nonetheless.

“ _ Leave this place _ .” 

The creature’s voice was a low, animalistic rumble from deep within his chest. There was a growl just barely concealed beneath those words, an animal protecting its territory. A warning. A threat. Dedue swallowed hard and responded.

“I cannot,” He said. Not breaking eye contact, Dedue nodded towards the nearest window. “The storm.”

This close, Dedue could smell the heavy scent of the beast. It was a combination of dirt and an animalistic musk. He could see now the many mats in the creature’s mane. His fur was thinning in a few places, a clear sign of malnourishment and a battle with the elements. Perhaps battles with other animals, as well. Dedue still could not see the creature’s other eye. The fur where it should be was overgrown, perhaps indicating that an eye was not underneath at all.

The creature reached forward, towards Dedue’s neck. The hand, he noticed, was dense and clawed like a lion’s, but long and dexterous as a human’s. Dedue gritted his teeth and willed himself not to flinch away. He fully expected the creature to rip his throat out. Instead it - he - grabbed the blanket from Dedue’s shoulders and harshly tugged it away.

“You pilfered my cape,” he said, wrapping the garment around his own shoulders.

“My apologies. I was cold and mistook it for a blanket. My apologies for trespassing as well, my lord,” Dedue said. Then, taking the biggest risk he had all night, he dropped to one knee and lowered his head in a show of respect. “I had no idea I was entering the domain of a god. I am Dedue Molinaro. Please, grant me shelter for this one night and I vow to return with offerings and prayers as often as you desire.”

There was silence from above him, but Dedue dared not chance disrespect by raising his head too soon.

“God?” The creature finally responded.

“I assume that is what you are, my lord,” Dedue said. “Though most of Fódlan only worships the goddess Sothis, multiple deities watch over the people of Duscur. Some are local, holding dominion over a single settlement or forest. Many are animals with the power of speech, or exist in a body that combines the most powerful aspects of man and beast alike. Forgive me, my lord, for I do not know which god I address. But I believe you must be one. Otherwise…”

Dedue had no end to that sentence. Otherwise what? He had no way to fathom the creature before him if it were not an all powerful being.

“I am no god,” The creature’s voice shook with anger. Then he roared. “Look at me, damn you!”

Dedue looked up. Hovering above him now, the creature was more imposing than ever.

“I am no god!” He cried. “I am a monster! A beast! Look upon me! You fall on your knee before an undeserving abomination!”

He lunged then, and once against Dedue braced himself for impact. Instead the creature grabbed the candelabra that hung forgotten in Dedue’s hand and hurled it furiously against the wall. It hit the wall with enough force to dent it and enough of a clatter to make Dedue’s poor horse rear back in fear once more. Dedue’s eyes darted to her, wishing he could do something to ease her. All things considered, she was having the worst night of any of them.

The creature turned back to Dedue, shoulders heaving after his sudden bout of rage. “Be gone by morning. If I see you in the light of day you will meet the end of my lance.”

With that, he dropped back down to all fours and bounded out of the room down a darkened hall, so quickly that Dedue was left wondering if the whole encounter had even happened at all.

_ Odd that he would use a lance _ , Dedue thought.  _ Why not his claws or his maw? _

Safe, at least for the time being, Dedue slowly approached his horse and began the painstaking process of calming her before she dropped dead from fright. Eventually he was able to coax her enough to lead her into the sitting room with the fireplace he had found before. It turned out that the wood was not damp or moldy after all, which made sense now that Dedue knew the manor was occupied. Did the lord of the manor light fires, though? Could such a powerful, ferocious creature do such mundane tasks? These were the thoughts that occupied his mind as he warmed himself and his horse by the fire. They continued to churn in the back of his mind even as he banked the fire and curled up to sleep on one of the luxurious couches. Or, rather, it must have once been luxurious. Now there was a large gash through the back of it where stuffing was spilling out. Dedue thought of how that gash might have come to be, and on and on until he eventually fell into sleep.

* * *

The next morning Dedue awoke with the sun. He wanted to honor the creature’s wishes, wanted to leave this place as soon as he could. But as soon as he flung open the front door he found his fears confirmed. The snow was piled far too high to travel through. He could perhaps clear a small path, just far enough to bring his horse to the stables. That is, if he could find the stables, and assuming that there were any stables to be found. At least the storm had ceased overnight. He said a small prayer of thanks for that.

He went to investigate his cart, first. Luckily, Dedue had left it under an overhang, so it had been protected from the very worst of the storm. Even so, the wheels were set deep in the snow, probably stiff and frozen. Dedue spared a brief moment of concern for the contents of the cart. Hopefully there would not be too much damage, and the cold would have at least preserved the food.

Next, he set out on his trek to find the stables. He looked across the horizon and spotted another building not too far away. He went back inside, grabbed the shovel by the fireside, then set off towards the building he had seen. He wound his way there at a torturously slow pace, trying his best to clear the path before him as he went. When he arrived at the building he found that it was indeed a fully equipped stable. Though, predictably, there were no horses in residence. He doubted the lord of the house was one for riding.

_ The lord of the house… _ Dedue was not looking forward to seeing him again, to explaining why Dedue had disobeyed his wishes and lingered on his property.

His walk back to the manor was slightly quicker and slightly more tedious, now that the path was more or less clear. Dedue still needed to watch his step, but he was also able to observe the statue garden this time as he passed through it. It was actually visible now that snow wasn’t falling around him thick as stew. The statues were all situated on risen pedestals, as well, meaning that they could still be seen even above the blanket of snow that lay on the ground.

Dedue simply admired the artistry in the statues until he came across one with a face he recognized. It was a face he had seen in portraits, replicas of which were often sold throughout markets in Faerghus. It was the face of the late king Lambert. Dedue took a step closer and wiped snow away from the plaque at the statue’s feet, curious to see if he had identified the king correctly.

_ His Royal Majesty King Lambert Egitte Blaiddyd _ , it read,  _ accompanied by his son, His Royal Highness Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd _ .

Dedue’s eyebrows rose. He had not even noticed the second figure. But sure enough, when Dedue lowered his eyes from the king’s face, he saw that His Majesty was not positioned in any sort of battle pose. Instead, he held the hand of a little boy.

It was a little boy that Dedue recognized.

Dedue remembered fire and blood. His village burned around him. He was so young and he could not find his family. A soldier from Faerghus found Dedue instead. The soldier lofted his sword, ready to strike Dedue down. Dedue couldn’t move, couldn’t stop crying. Then another small boy, a blond boy, ran out in front of the soldier’s sword. He held his hands wide, stance protective in front of Dedue’s cowering body. He shouted something in a language Dedue could not understand, the tongue of Fódlan still strange in his ears back then. Whatever it was, it made the soldier pause. Then the soldier bowed his head, murmured something, and walked away. Dedue had been stunned. The blond boy turned and took Dedue’s hand, said something Dedue couldn’t understand. He lead Dedue to a tent where he was given medical attention and water. 

Dedue had never seen the little blond boy again after that. It had never once occurred to him that he could have been the young prince of Faerghus himself! Dedue felt a pang of sadness when he matched the boy from his memory to the fate he knew befell young prince Dimitri. Not long after the slaughter of the royal family at Duscur, Prince Dimitri himself had also disappeared. It was presumed that he was also murdered by the same group that had done away with his father.

As Dedue walked the rest of the way back, he spotted other members of the Faerghus royal line memorialized in stone. He wondered how common it was for nobles to have a statue garden of royalty surrounding their manors.

Coaxing his horse down the path he had carved out in the snow proved an even more tedious journey than before, but he was luckily able to get her situated in the stables safely. He had retrieved food and blankets for her from his cart, so she should be comfortable enough. It was returning to the manor once more, now without any sort of goal or plan for a next step, that truly bothered Dedue. He could try to hide in the stable with his horse all day, until the nightfall at least. The creature had said he did not want to see Dedue in the daylight, after all. But Dedue had not eaten since yesterday at midday and he was very hungry. So he grabbed some jerky from his cart and ate some of it as he searched the manor for a kitchen.

It did not take too long for Dedue to locate it, but as soon as he opened the door to the kitchen he wished he hadn’t found it quite yet. There was the creature, once again on two legs, peering out the back door that led from the kitchen into the back garden. His back was to Dedue, so perhaps Dedue still had time to leave without being spotted. But as soon as Dedue took one step backward, one of the creature’s ears gave a telltale flick. The creature turned to face Dedue and Dedue stopped where he stood.

“Why are you still here?” The creature asked. Dedue noticed that, thankfully, a lance was nowhere to be seen.

“I tried to leave, but it is impossible,” Dedue explained. “The snow is too high. I am trapped here until it melts.”

The creature turned its head slightly, looking out the open back door once again. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Nothing.” The creature turned his back on Dedue once more. “I am going out.”

Dedue sucked in a breath and instinctively took a step forward to stop the creature before remembering himself. “In this snow? I would hope you do not intend to go far.”

“I must hunt,” the creature said shortly. “Would you have me starve instead?”

“There is no need.” Dedue took another few strides forward, holding out the bunch of jerky he still had clutched in his hand.

The creature slowly closed the back door behind him and cautiously approached Dedue. Then, in one rapid motion he snatched the food from Dedue’s hand and shoved it in his mouth ravenously.

“This meager handful cannot sustain me,” he said, even as he eagerly devoured his mouthful.

“I have more,” Dedue assured him. “Much more. I am a traveling merchant and my wares are food. I have meat and vegetables and bread… It’s all in my cart outside. I only need to fetch it.”

The creature’s eye narrowed. “And you would share it with me?”

“It will rot if it is not used,” Dedue provided. “Besides, it would not do to hoard it all to myself. Please, allow me to repay your hospitality even in the smallest respect.”

The creature snorted, a sound that could have been the vague approximation of a laugh. “What hospitality? I tried to turn you away.”

“And yet here I am.”

Dedue went to fetch an armful of ingredients from his cart. When he returned the creature was still standing in the middle of the kitchen looking… Hesitant. Awkward and unsure of what to do with himself. Really, he seemed much less intimidating here in the daylight. In the shadows he had appeared a stalking predator. But the sun through the windows made the thinning patches in his fur, the ragged edges of his clothes, and the mats in his mane all the more apparent. Less the powerful hunter, he now seemed more like one of the terrified strays that Dedue often fed scraps to in city alleyways.

“What do you like to eat?” Dedue asked.

“I take what I can get,” the creature responded gruffly.

“Do you have a preference? I have plenty of ingredients,” Dedue tried again.

This time the creature did not respond, so Dedue decided to cook a hearty beef stew, with the meat extra rare just in case. Though animals typically feasted on raw meat, Dedue did not want to offend his host by presenting him an uncooked slab as his only option. Besides, Dedue assumed that anyone who spoke, wore clothes, and walked upright would appreciate a full meal.

The creature hovered as Dedue cooked, watching his every move with a predator’s precision. But every time Dedue glanced over his shoulder, the creature would glance away as if he had never been looking in the first place. It was almost cute, in a school-boyish way Dedue never would have expected.

When the stew was finished Dedue found the largest bowl he could and heaped it high. He set it down in front of the creature, who ignored his spoon entirely and instead picked up the bowl with both hands and brought it to his face. He slurped and licked and smacked loudly. Dedue smiled to himself. Enjoyment of food always trumped table manners in his opinion. Though the creature’s impatience for food was concerning. When was the last time he had a full meal? Was that why he was hovering by Dedue as he cooked? Sheer hunger?

Dedue considered these questions as he sat down with his own bowl of stew and ate across the table from the creature. When the creature finally set down his bowl, it was licked clean. He hastily wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Dedue wished he could give him a warm bath, trim and comb his mane, even give him new clothes. He did not know what type of animal or man his host was, but he knew that this was no way to live.

“What is your name?” Dedue asked.

“My name is no concern of yours,” the creature responded.

“Then I will continue to call you ‘my lord’,” Dedue decided.

“Do not do that.”

Such a petulant response made a small smile threaten to tug at the corners of Dedue’s lips once again. “But you are the apparent lord of this manor, and I must call you something.”

“I would prefer you call me nothing at all.”

With that, the creature left the room, cloak swirling behind him. Dedue watched him go, thinking that it was unacceptable to have no polite way to refer to one’s host. In fact, Dedue was starting to feel quite guilty for thinking of the lord of the house as merely “the creature.” Even if his name was to remain a mystery, Dedue would think of him as the lord of the manor for the time being.

* * *

The next day was just as frigidly cold as the one before it, and the snow had hardly melted at all. Dedue woke with the sun once more. After making sure his horse was tended to, he went straight to the kitchen and began preparing a breakfast for two. He was just taking the breakfast hash out of the frying pan when he heard a loud ruckus outside the back door. His first thought was for the lord, that he must have tried to go hunting in this horrible snow after all.

Dedue rushed to the door and threw it open to see a woman, bundled up so thoroughly from head to toe that he could hardly see her face, struggling to make her way through the knee-high snow while balancing a large basket on her back.

“Let me help you!” Dedue called and immediately started wading through the snow toward her.

“Oh!” the woman exclaimed. Her head snapped up to look at him. She was so surprised that for a moment it seemed as if she would lose her balance and go toppling sideways into the snowbank. She teetered dangerously before regaining herself. Dedue was finally close enough to offer his arm to steady her. “Who are you?”

“My name is Dedue Molinaro,” Dedue answered. “Here, let me carry your basket for you. Please, come inside and warm yourself. No one should be out when the snow is still this high.”

The woman allowed him to shoulder her basket and usher her inside, all as though she were in some kind of daze. She kept staring at Dedue, even as he sat her on a stool by the kitchen fire and handed her a cup of warm tea.

“You’re staying here?” She finally managed to say.

“I am,” Dedue said. “At least until the snow melts enough for me to travel again.”

“But Dimitri never has guests!”

Dedue was taken aback. “Dimitri? Is that the lord of this house? The… Um…”

Dedue gestured around his head to indicate a mane, which made the woman laugh.

“Yes, that’s him.”

_ Dimitri… _ Dedue remembered the statue he saw in the garden yesterday. Either a strange coincidence or… Was the name Dimitri particularly common in Faerghus? If so, Dedue hadn’t noticed.

“I stumbled upon this place by chance during the storm and Dimitri has been kind enough to allow me to take shelter here.” Dedue knew he was overstating Dimitri’s actual willingness to be hospitable, but Dedue had no desire to speak ill of his host nevertheless.

“What good fortune. I’m Mercedes von Martritz, by the way.” Mercedes offered her hand, which Dedue shook. “How rude of me not to introduce myself earlier. I run the little church not too far from here.”

_ So there was a church! _ What kind of luck must Dedue have, to have stumbled upon this manor in the storm and not the hospitable church nearby.

“May I ask why you have journeyed outside of your church in weather such as this?” Dedue asked. “I do not know where your destination is, but it is my suggestion that you turn around and return the way you came, for your own safety.”

Again Mercedes let out that soft, kind laugh. 

“This is my destination! I was bringing Dimitri food.” She gestured to the large basket that Dedue had set down on the counter. “Have a look.”

Dedue opened the top to find breads and teacakes and sprouts and cauliflower! Even more food was hidden in the depths of the basket. Dedue was stunned.

“This is all for him?”

Mercedes nodded. “I bring whatever I can spare as often as I can, or else he hardly feeds himself! Oh, would you bring over those teacakes?”

Dedue set out the teacakes on a plate and found his place in the stool across from Mercedes, his own mug of tea in hand.

“We might as well taste test these!” Mercedes said, popping a cake in her mouth. “After braving the weather outside, I’d say we’ve earned it!”

Dedue tried a teacake himself. It tasted wonderful.

“I know I shouldn’t have come out with the snow still so high,” Mercedes admitted. “But it had been a few days since my last delivery. I was starting to worry that he was running low on food, but then the storm hit and I couldn’t come! I wanted to come yesterday but my brother said it was too dangerous. Today, I insisted. The basket isn’t usually so full when I come by, but I felt so worried for Dimitri that I ended up filling it to the brim this time.”

Dedue could only blink at her as he chewed his cake. “Are you his caretaker? Why are you so invested in his well being?”

Mercedes folded her hands in her lap thoughtfully. “Well, it is the church’s duty to help those in need, isn’t it? And Dimitri needs more help than most. Besides, before I met you today, I thought I was the only person in the world who knew the prince was still alive. It made me feel responsible for not letting him waste away.”

The teacake Dedue was holding slipped from between his fingers and landed on his saucer with a  _ thunk _ . “Prince?”

A small, confused furrow appeared between Mercedes’ brows. “Yes. You said you had met Dimitri, didn’t you?”

“I have, but he has refused to speak about himself.” Dedue’s head was reeling. “He cannot really be the lost prince of Faerghus, can he?”

Mercedes nodded. “He is. I guess I should have expected for him not to answer any of your questions.”

“But…” Dedue struggled for words. “He has not always been this way, correct? He was once a man? Or, he was a boy at least.”

“He was.” She traced her finger around the rim of her teacup. “But when his family was attacked, he wasn’t left unscathed as everyone thought. I believe he was cursed by mages the assassins employed. It took awhile for the curse to take effect, but you can see the results clear as day now. That’s my theory, anyway. I wasn’t there when the attack happened, obviously. I only met the prince by chance when I realized this old manor was actually inhabited by someone. He was practically starving back then, so I started bringing him food. It’s been many years now. I haven’t spoken to him about the curse much either. He’s a very solitary person, as you’ve already seen, and doesn’t like talking about himself. Or talking much at all. I usually just leave the basket of food at the kitchen door and go home.”

“Today is an exception,” Dedue said firmly. “It is so cold. He would never expect you to come and go without a rest to warm yourself.”

Mercedes hummed noncommittally. Dedue took a moment to sip his tea and think.

“A curse,” he murmured into his cup. “I have heard of magic that brings all kinds of pain. I suppose it’s possible a curse could induce a transformation such as this, as well. It’s very good of you to take care of him like this, Mercedes.”

“I only wish I could do more. Sometimes I wonder if he…”

She trailed off, her eyes going wide. Dedue looked behind himself and saw the lord of the manor, Dimitri, standing in the doorway.

“Thank you for the tea and the conversation, Dedue.” Mercedes stood, brushing off her skirts. “But my brother will be worried if I don’t get home soon. I should be going.”

Dedue stood as well. “Allow me to walk you back. The snow is still-”

“No, you don’t need to trouble yourself! I know the way very well.” Mercedes was already at the door. “Thank you, again. I hope I will see you again sometime!”

As soon as Mercedes was gone, Dedue turned on Dimitri. “You should have insisted she stay and warm herself.”

“You already did that,” Dimitri responded roughly. “Besides, she left of her own accord. Unless you are saying I scared her off?”

“I do not think you frighten Mercedes in the least.”  _ I simply think you are a rather uninviting host. _ “You are right. I should not presume to tell you what to do, Your Highness.”

Dimitri, who was already investigating the basket of food Mercedes had left, flinched visibly. “Do not call me that.”

“Why not? You reject all other titles.”

Dimitri bit into a muffin with more savagery than Dedue would have suspected a muffin could take. “No one has called me that in quite some time. It is hardly my title anymore.”

Dedue would argue that it was still his title. Dimitri was still a member of the royal family, no matter if he was man or beast. “What would you have me call you, then? Dimitri?”

Dimitri hesitated before his next bite. “At least it is better than ‘Your Highness’.”

Dedue shook his head. “It would be disrespectful to your station to call you anything other than your title.”

“You call me a prince and yet you disobey my most basic requests,” Dimitri snapped. “What respect could you possibly have for me?”

“I hold you in only the highest respect,” Dedue said honestly. “It seems as though you have been through much. My respect has been well earned.”

“Mercedes told you a bit about me, I gather.”

“Just a bit.”

“Clearly.” Dimitri’s tone was precise and cold. “If you knew me better, you would not respect me as you claim.”

Dedue stuck his chin out, defiant. “Now you are underestimating me. I am certain I could hold you in just as high esteem no matter what. I am sure you recall the massacre at Duscur.”

Dimitri’s eye met Dedue’s. “Were you there on that day?”

“We met on that day. You saved my life.”

Dimitri took in a deep, shaky breath. “You were the boy. You were only my age and they were trying to kill you.”

“You  _ saved _ me,” Dedue reiterated, hoping to imbue those words with the significance that he felt.

“I was not sure… I never saw you after that, so I did not know if they…”

“I was one of the few survivors thanks to your kindness.”

“I should have done more, helped more people, made sure you...”

“You were a child! Neither of us should have been forced to be on that battlefield in the first place.”

Dimitri lowered his gaze again, suddenly very interested in his previously abandoned muffin. 

“My transformation began not too long after that day. It started with a sense of savagery coming over me, a beastial nature awakening within my soul. Then the claws, the elongated teeth… By the time the transformation became somewhat noticeable to people around me, I could hardly stand the company of other people anyway. So I retreated to my family’s abandoned hunting lodge without a word and let the world presume me dead. As you can see, I have only become more monstrous since then. I assume one day I will become unable to speak at all. I will lose my mind and become an animal completely. I hope that day might bring oblivion. No more memories. No more ghosts. Maybe my lion’s mind will maintain impressions of past hurt. Maybe I will have a lion’s anger. Even so, that would be preferable to the way I am carrying on now.” Dimitri pushed away the basket of food. “I have lost my appetite. Good day, Dedue.”

Dedue watched him leave the kitchen. He wanted to follow Dimitri, to somehow convey that the pain in Dimitri’s heart matched the pain in his own. It was as though their traumas were puzzle pieces, complementary opposites that were formed from the same events. He didn’t go after Dimitri just then, but he did silently promise himself that he would stay by the prince’s side, at least for a while, to help him. Dimitri may look dangerous in his current form, but he had had plenty of opportunities to harm Dedue by now and had not taken any of them. He had saved Dedue long ago, and that was more a show of what was in the man’s heart than any newfound savagery he may be feeling.

* * *

Dedue’s first order of business was to ensure that Dimitri was properly bathed and groomed. He deserved to not live in a body of tangled fur and broken skin. But Dedue knew he could not simply approach the prince and order him to bathe. Not only would it be improper, but it would also never work. So Dedue tried something a bit more devious than he would usually dare.

Ever since that second day when Dedue had cooked stew for the both of them, Dimitri had just so happened to find his way to the kitchen whenever Dedue was cooking. And since he just so happened to be in the kitchen already, Dimitri ate meals with Dedue as well. With gusto. Dedue was exceedingly grateful for this fact. He traveled on his own so often as a merchant that he rarely was able to eat multiple meals in a row with the same company. Indeed, his reputation as a man of Duscur often meant he spent meals alone.

He was also reassured to see how eagerly Dimitri ate his cooking, especially considering how malnourished Dimitri had looked when they first met. Despite Mercedes’ heroic efforts to deliver him food, Dedue could already tell that Dimitri had difficulty taking care of himself. Dedue had no wish to baby the prince, but he also knew Dimitri would not suddenly decide to change his habits all on his own.

Which is why one morning Dedue prepared the two of them an especially sticky batch of porridge for breakfast. He made sure the porridge had cooled down enough so that it was simply warm rather than steaming, and when he handed Dimitri his bowl, Dedue allowed his hand to subtly slip, spilling porridge directly into a thick tuft of Dimitri’s mane.

“Oh!” Dedue exclaimed in faux surprise. Dimitri, for his part, merely blinked. Dedue had expected offense, or even outrage. But apparently Dimitri did not take minor spills personally. Dedue continued with his plan regardless. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, I should have been more careful. Please, allow me to get you cleaned up.”

“You do not need to do that.” Dimitri was already pawing at his mane. He was probably trying to comb out the porridge with his fingers, but was only succeeding in making the fur more tangled and matted.

“I insist. Here, come with me.”

Dedue took Dimitri’s hand that was not currently enmeshed in his mane and tugged on it lightly, urging Dimitri to stand. His hand was softer than Dedue had expected. His fur, though not well cared for, was not as coarse as Dedue had thought it would be. The underside of his fingers and palm had pads on them, just like any house cat would. Dimitri stared, dumbstruck, at where their hands were joined. He was seemingly more affected by this than being doused in porridge. Dedue suddenly realized that this was the first time the two of them had touched.

He didn’t take too long to ponder that revelation. Instead, he took advantage of Dimitri’s suddenly dazed state and led him straight to the bathing chambers.

“Please undress, Your Highness,” Dedue said. “I will go get the water and be right back.”

Dedue left the bathroom and closed the door behind him before Dimitri had time to object. As part of his plan, Dedue had already fetched more than enough water beforehand. He heated it as quickly as he could, then returned to the bathroom. Dimitri was standing in the middle of the room in his smallclothes, looking utterly at a loss as to what to do with himself. Dedue had bathed in public bath houses often enough that he would usually insist that another man’s nudity was “nothing he hadn’t seen before.” But of course, Dimitri’s current anatomy was an oddity in and of itself. Dedue could sympathize with Dimitri’s shyness about it, his impulse to remain at least partially covered.

“I will not look if you do not want me to,” Dedue said. “But you cannot bathe in your small clothes.”

“I know that!” If Dimitri were still his pale-skinned, human self, perhaps he would have blushed. As it was, he blustered a bit as he removed his last scrap of fabric and tossed it into a pile with the rest of his clothes. Dedue kept his eyes politely and resolutely above Dimitri’s waistline.

There were shelves along the bathing chamber walls were stocked with dust coated bottles of oils, soaps, and fragrances. Dedue wetted a soapy washcloth and approached the prince.

“What are you doing?” Dimitri asked.

“Washing away the dirt before you soak in the bath.”

Dimitri took a step backward. “You do not have to do that.”

“I am not sure what the bathing customs of Faerghus royalty are, but I assure you that it is a much more pleasant experience to soak in clean water as opposed to filthy.”

“No, I mean  _ you _ do not need to do that,” Dimitri clarified. “Not for me.”

“I do not mind.” He truly didn’t. But also, Dedue hardly trusted Dimitri to wash himself properly at this point, after such a long lapse in self-care. Dedue placed the washcloth on Dimitri’s head, on the part of his mane just above his ear. Dimitri flinched and Dedue pulled away. “Does it hurt?”

“No…” Dimitri said, though he sounded hesitant.

“Then please, allow me to do this.”

Dedue proceeded to soap up Dimitri, using washcloth and fingers to scrub the suds deep into his fur. He wasn’t bothering with the tangles and mats yet, he just wanted to get Dimitri clean first. Dimitri stood stock still under Dedue’s touch. He could feel the tension in the prince’s muscles.

Those muscles were a wonder all on their own. They were firm and strong from Dimitri’s sporadic hunting, despite the prince’s apparent malnutrition before Dedue began feeding him regular meals. The muscles were in strange shapes and sizes, as well. They were not quite human, but not fully animal either, just like the rest of the prince.

“This seems like overkill for one simple spill,” Dimitri commented.

Dedue needed to restrain himself from clucking his tongue, like his mother used to whenever Dedue himself had refused to take a bath as a child. “I assure you, it is not.”

Dedue hesitated when his washcloth reached Dimitri’s waistline. He had kept his eyes dutifully above the belt this entire time, but how was he going to…

“I will wash my lower half myself,” Dimitri announced stiffly. He took the cloth from Dedue and turned around to protect his modesty while he washed his legs and what lay in between, as well as his feet and even his tail. Once he was finished, Dedue fetched another bucket of warm water and slowly poured it over Dimitri’s body to rise away the soap and grime. Dimitri let out a small, soft, but undoubtedly contented sigh. Dedue needed to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning ear to ear.

“There we go,” Dedue said. “I’ll fill up the tub so you can soak now.”

“If I am already clean, why do I need to get in the bath?” Dimitri ran his hand through the mane under his chin. “The porridge is already gone.”

Dedue had not considered this eventuality. Yes, Dimitri was clean now, and that was a definite improvement. But his fur still had knots that Dedue had planned to untangle. He still had patches of irritated skin that Dedue had wanted to anoint. And worst of all, he still looked so terribly tense.

“True, but wouldn’t you like a bath?” Dedue asked. “I have already prepared the water. It will be very relaxing, I assure you.”

“I do not think-”

“Please get in the tub, Your Highness.” Dedue let more exasperation creep into his voice than he meant to. He also had not meant to cut Dimitri off. Dedue braced himself for anger, but instead Dimitri just looked at him, then turned around and sat in the tub like a cat sitting in a box.

Dedue got the last of the hot water and used it to fill the tub around Dimitri’s body. Dimitri made another small noise, an inhale that allowed steam to fill his nostrils and clear his lungs. He let the breath out in a little puff of air. His shoulders slumped in relaxation, but he was still sitting upright in the middle of the tub with his arms wrapped around his legs.

“Would you lie back for me, Your Highness?” Dedue asked. “It will be easier for me to do your hair that way.”

“My hair?” Dimitri sounded incredulous. “I have no hair. Only a beast’s fur.”

“I would consider this hair.” Dedue reached out to run a few fingers demonstratively through Dimitri’s mane. Dimitri went stock still under his hand, shoulder muscles going firm and rigid once more. Dedue pulled back his hand. “I apologize. Do you not wish to be touched?”

Dimitri was silent for so long that Dedue worried Dimitri either hadn’t heard the question or the question had angered him beyond words. But after a very drawn out moment, Dimitri’s voice escaped in barely audible tones. 

“I am not accustomed to being touched, except in the violence of a hunt.” Dimitri raised a paw from the water to vaguely gesture toward his missing eye. “There has been no one to touch me but my fellow beasts of the woods whom I scrap with. To be touched in kindness is… It feels near unbearable.”

“I had no idea.” Dedue’s hands were held awkwardly in the air, still hovering from where he had withdrawn them after touching Dimitri’s mane. As difficult as it was to hear, Dedue could relate somewhat to what Dimitri was saying. Traveling alone for business, he would sometimes go months without touching another human being other than a business-like handshake. It wasn’t just isolating. It was painful in a more physical way than one might expect. Though Dedue could usually find someone to warm his bed for a night before the loneliness got too difficult. Dimitri didn’t have that luxury. “Should I stop?”

Another long pause.

“No,” Dimitri finally said. “No, I think that would be worse.”

Stiffly, Dimitri unwrapped his arms from around his legs and allowed himself to stretch out in the bath. He rested his head back against the lip of the tub, within easy reach of Dedue’s still hovering hands. So Dedue reached for him. Dedue poured a hair oil he recognized over his fingers and worked it into Dimitri’s mane, making the fur easier to detangle. Some of the mats were too thick to be easily undone.

“Some of these will need to be cut.”

“ _ Pardon? _ ” There was a note of alarm in Dimitri’s voice.

“Some mats in your hair are impossible to undo without being cut, and if I leave them as they are they will only continue to pull at your skin painfully,” Dedue explained. “Do I have your permission?”

“Oh. I have no objection,” Dimitri settled back down. “It is only hair. A creature such as myself has no reason to be vain about such things.”

Dedue was concerned that Dimitri’s first thought was that Dedue wanted to cut something other than hair. There were still so many aspects of his brutal life that Dedue wished he could undo as easily as the tangles in his hair, or could cut out completely like painful mats. 

Dedue tried to lighten the mood by saying, “I never assumed you vain. Still, I will attempt

to not leave you with any bald spots.”

Predictably, Dimitri did not laugh. So Dedue continued his work in silence. He found hair cutting scissors on a shelf along with other soaps and solutions for the care and upkeep of hair. He prepared the area of each mat carefully, so as not to further tug at Dimitri’s skin, and cut each mat into small enough pieces that they could finally be undone. Dedue was no barber, but he cut his own hair when need be, and he had removed mats from animals before. He pointedly did not mention that detail to Dimitri, who already felt animalistic enough without such reminders. By the time Dedue was through with his mane, it had been so long that steam had stopped rising from the water.

“Has the water gone cold?” Dedue asked.

“I am fine.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Dedue dipped a finger in the water. It was lukewarm at best. “You should get out of the bath now. You may catch a cold if you stay too long in water that’s lost its heat.”

Dimitri wordlessly accepted Dedue’s offered hand to help him out of the tub. The pads on his paw pressed gently into Dedue’s palm. The softness of them felt so incongruous with the rest of this gruff man. Dimitri also wordlessly accepted Dedue’s help in toweling off his soaking fur. He only objected when he was handed the clean clothes that Dedue had set aside for him.

“Where did you get these?” Dimitri asked, somewhat accusatory.

“They are mine. I thought you could borrow them, since I don’t know where you keep your own clean clothing.”  _ Or whether you keep any of your clothing clean at all. _

Dimitri’s hands tightened around the clothing. They were a simple, loose fitting set. Billowing white shirt, trousers with minimal buttons, and smallclothes. “If these are yours, they will not fit me.”

“Perhaps not. I am quite a bit taller and broader than you,” Dedue admitted. “They will likely be too large on you, but over the years I have found that clothing that is too large fits much more comfortably than clothing that is too small.”

Dimitri looked up from the clothing in his grip and peering into Dedue’s face. Dedue got the strange sensation that at that moment, Dimitri was truly looking at him for the first time. He studied Dedue’s face, then his eye swept slowly over Dedue’s entire body from the top down, taking it all in. Dedue couldn’t help fidgeting in place under such a gaze. 

“So you are,” Dimitri finally said. “Taller and broader indeed. I hadn’t imagined anyone… Still, my body is unlike yours. My shape is not human.”

“Your shape is human enough,” Dedue insisted. “The clothes should do for now, until I have washed what you were wearing.”

Alarm passed over Dimitri’s features. Only now was Dedue realizing how expressive Dimitri’s face still was, despite its transformation. “My cape. What have you done with it?”

“It is with the rest of your clothes for washing,” Dedue had removed his discarded clothes when he was going back and forth with hot water for the bath.

“It was my father’s,” Dimitri said simply. It was all he needed to say.

“I understand. The scarf I often wear also belonged to my late father.” Dedue said. “I will take great care with the cape, and return it to you as soon as I can.”

Dimitri held his gaze, then nodded once and dressed in the clean clothes he had been given.

The two of them soon found themselves before a roaring fire in the same room Dedue had found on his first night in the manor. Dimitri’s temporary clothes were loose fitting and flexible, but they lacked the warmth one really needed for a winter in a drafty house. So Dedue bundled him up in a blanket - a real one this time, not a cape - and they sat together on the sofa.

“Here.” Dedue pulled out a small jar of whitish ointment. When he unscrewed the top, a pleasant herbal scent filled the air. “This salve is an old Duscur recipe. My grandmother used to make it for our village.”

“What is it for?”

“The skin. It treats irritation, rashes, small wounds…” Dedue held out his hand. “May I see your arm?”

Dimitri allowed Dedue to take his hand yet again. Dedue quickly found a patch of thinning fur on the forearm, the skin underneath harshly abrased. Dedue massaged the ointment into it as gently as he could. Dimitri did not so much as wince, though Dedue was not sure if that was to Dimitri’s credit or not. Perhaps the prince was so used to pain at this point that a bit more hardly registered. 

“The ointment may make your fur a bit oily in places,” Dedue warned.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to take another bath. I’ll admit, I ended up enjoying the one I had today,” Dimitri said. “Though I expect I won’t need quite as much help next time.”

“That may be so,” Dedue said, “but I do not mind helping one bit.”

In fact, Dedue had quite enjoyed today as well. Though he had not been the one luxuriating in hot water, the methodical cleaning of Dimitri had been satisfying and relaxing in its own way.

Dedue anointed raw patches of skin on both arms carefully searching with his fingertips while making sure not to prod too harshly. Very often his fingers would skim over scar tissue from some long forgotten battle or hunt, well hidden under the blue-black fur. 

“I believe I saw a patch of irritated skin on your chest as well,” Dedue commented. “Does it pain you?”

By way of response, Dimitri loosened the strings that held the top of the shirt together. He pulled the fabric aside, which was easy to do in a shirt so loose around his shoulders, and revealed a section of his chest. It was a thinning patch of fur over inflamed skin, like the others. Dedue rubbed his salve into it, but as he did he his fingers caught on the edge of a scar, much thicker than any of the other’s he’d found. Without thinking, he traced it. It was in a starburst shape, perhaps from a puncture wound that had been ripped open some way or another.

“A chest wound like this could have killed you,” Dedue murmured, more to himself than Dimitri. But of course, Dimitri heard him anyway.

“It didn’t.”

Dedue drew his hand away and pulled aside the collar of his shirt to reveal a long, thin scar on the side of his neck. “I thought this one would be the end of me. But I survived. Some of the scars on my face were close calls, too. I consider it pure luck that I still have both my eyes.”

Dimitri raised his hand from his lap, as if to reach out and touch Dedue’s scar as Dedue had done to him. But he stopped himself. “How did you get so many? I assume you’re not often roaming the woods, competing with a wolf pack for your latest kill.”

Dedue suppressed a shudder at the thought of Dimitri being put through such an ordeal. “No. Just your average thief who sees a lone merchant on the road and wants to try his luck. It’s usually either that or some drunken idiot who sees I’m from Duscur and decides to start a brawl over it.”

The growl that came from Dimitri’s chest then was so deep and fierce it genuinely frightened Dedue until he realized the sound was a reaction to his story and not to Dedue himself.

“If anyone like that ever dared enter my forest, they would not leave in one piece. If they ever left at all.”

It was a simple, excessively violent sentiment. But it had been so long since someone else had genuinely looked out for Dedue, had wanted to protect him from the cruelty of the world, that he felt a warmth spread through his chest all the same.

“Let me sit behind you,” Dedue said, ready to change the subject to a less painful topic. “I would like to braid some bits of your hair so it won’t tangle again.”

Dimitri was well past resisting Dedue’s efforts at this point. He simply repositioned himself on the couch, staring into the fire so that Dedue could comfortably sit behind him. From this angle, Dedue could shamelessly watch the way his own shirt gently slid down one of Dimitri’s shoulders. It really was too big for him, and the image of the prince drowning in cloth made him much less intimidating. It almost made him cute.

Dedue sectioned out Dimitri’s mane and began to make little braids throughout. Fresh from the bath as he was, his mane was lush to touch. Dedue relished sinking his fingers into it without catching on any mats. He found himself wishing spring would come more quickly, so he could braid small flowers into Dimitri’s hair.

“I wish I could return the favor for you,” Dimitri suddenly said. “But my paws are too clumsy for such delicate work.”

“I appreciate the offer regardless.” Truly, the offer alone was enough to make the warmth in Dedue’s chest spread all the way down to his toes and make the tips of his fingers tingle as they worked through Dimitri’s mane.

“You are too good, Dedue,” Dimitri said. “You probably have the most goodness out of any person I’ve ever met.”

“I disagree,” Dedue said. “You’ve met Mercedes.”

Dimitri made a huffing sound that Dedue might have thought was laughter if he did not know the prince better. “You are both far too giving for your own good. I worry people will take advantage of your kindness.”

“You underestimate me. I am very good at discerning who is deserving of kindness and who is not.”

“You could stand to be a bit more discerning, if you think someone such as myself is deserving of your attention.”

“I once believed something similar. I feared that everyone who was kind to me would be tainted by association, and would face the anger of those who hate Duscur.” Dedue finished the last braid and then folded his hands in his lap. “But that was no way to live. The people who want me miserable are already doing plenty to try and keep me that way. I do not need to help them with my own self-doubt.”

Dedue wanted to ask more about Dimitri’s curse just then, to know who it was who was trying to keep Dimitri miserable. But he didn’t want to push his luck after Dimitri had been uncommonly cooperative all day.

“You’re talkative today,” Dimitri commented.

Dedue let out an amused little hum from the back of his throat. Dimitri was right. Neither of them talked much. More often than not they took their meals together in companionable silence. Dedue idly wondered when those silences had become companionable. “I suppose you bring it out in me. Your Highness is a sparkling conversationalist.”

Dimitri left another long pause between them, as though he were purposefully trying to prove that the opposite was true. “You are teasing me. That is also unlike you.”

“My apologies, Your Highness.”

“You needn’t apologize. I like seeing new sides of you.”

They didn’t talk for a while after that, just sat by the fire. Dedue considered going to get some of his knitting, as it seemed the perfect afternoon for it. But he didn’t want to leave the room and break the moment that he and Dimitri had carved out together. Dimitri rested his head on the back of the sofa as he stared into the fire. His eye eventually drifted shut and his breath slowed.

Dedue stood at last, ready to leave Dimitri in peace for his nap, when Dimitri spoke up again. “I am not asleep.”

Dedue paused in his retreat from the room. “I see.”

“I cannot fall asleep so easily, you see.” Dimitri’s voice, despite his statement to the contrary, was a sleepy murmur. “I get nightmares.”

“Ah,” Dedue responded. He wasn’t sure if this was Dimitri’s way of asking him to stay or not.

“So you needn’t worry about the fire. I will put it out myself in a moment.” Dimitri’s eye was still shut as he said this, his posture still slack.

“Right. I’ll leave you to it then.”

Dedue decided to leave Dimitri alone for what was inevitably about to become a nap. If Dimitri suffered from nightmares, it was probably best to leave him to peacefully drift off in the throws of his post-bath relaxation. He surely needed the rest. Dedue would check on him and the state of the fire in a bit.

Dedue was already gone by the time Dimitri was well and truly asleep. Therefore, Dedue did not see the change that washed over Dimitri as he slipped into unconsciousness. He did not see that blue-black mane become a series of small, golden braids.

* * *

In time the snow began to melt and the roads were clear enough for travel once more. Yet Dedue stayed on. He moved everything from his cart into the kitchen of the manor, except for his few personal possessions, which he kept in a spare bedroom that he had claimed as his own. Dedue never mentioned his timeline for when he would leave, and Dimitri never brought up the idea of kicking him out. Dedue knew he would have to leave eventually and return to his old life. But something about the prospect of leaving Dimitri to haunt this old house by himself once more, allowing his body to fall into disrepair just as the manor had… It was unbearable to Dedue. The thought of never seeing the prince again hurt even more. Perhaps, when he eventually was forced to leave, he could add the manor to the route he travelled and make a yearly visit here. Dimitri had even started to join Dedue and Mercedes for tea on some days, though he rarely spoke during that time. Perhaps, now that Dimitri was more open to those sort of interactions, Dedue could convince Mercedes to check in with Dimitri more often.

But the thought of Dimitri spending day in and day out with lovely, sweet, considerate Mercedes in Dedue’s absence shot a sharp pang of jealousy through his chest that he felt thoroughly ashamed of.

So he didn’t worry too much about any of that just yet. For the time being Mercedes was generous enough to bring him ingredients to cook with, new yarn to knit with, and all other sorts of odds and ends Dedue requested from her. She even brought him some seeds and seedlings to help replant the garden once spring was fully upon them. Dedue gave her some money to help cover everything, though Mercedes only accepted about every third time he offered. 

He also had plenty to keep himself busy around the manor. He had made it his own personal project to fix the drafts throughout the house back during the winter. The first time Dimitri had seen Dedue walking around the manor with tools in hand, he had wordlessly joined to help. Since then, the two of them had embarked on many projects together, fixing this and that. As Dimitri had mentioned before, his paws were accommodating for delicate work, but he made up for it in his strength and endurance during other taxing work. Dedue was also able to take his horse out for longer, more frequent rides now that the weather was improving. All in all he was very satisfied with the daily life he had made for himself here.

One night, after a long day in the garden, Dedue was awoken from a bone-tired slumber by a timid knock on his door.

“Your Highness?” Dedue asked blearily. “Is that you?”

Dimitri opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him. The room was lit only by moonlight streaming through the window and his dark coat made him blend in seamlessly with the shadows. “I apologize for waking you.”

“Is something the matter?” Dedue sat up in bed, the covers falling away to reveal his bare chest. He still wore night clothes on his bottom half, but had taken to sleeping shirtless since the weather had begun to warm.

Dimitri opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Instead Dimitri’s gaze stayed wordlessly riveted on where the covers pooled around Dedue’s waist. He finally choked out a brief, “Sorry to have disturbed you,” and turned as if to leave.

“Wait! There must be a reason you came here in the middle of the night.” Truthfully, it was making Dedue worried. In all the time they had lived together, neither of them had ever stepped foot in the other’s bedchambers. It was one barrier that had still stood between them. Until now.

Dimitri still stood with his back to Dedue, choosing to face the door instead. But he didn’t leave. “Do you remember when I said I get nightmares?”

“I remember.”

Dedue had never witnessed Dimitri’s nightmares first hand. Aside from the day he started to doze off in front of the fire, Dedue had never seen Dimitri sleep at all, which perhaps was a symptom of his nightmares in and of itself.

“I don’t know why I came here in the first place,” Dimitri muttered. “I should go.”

Dedue got out of bed and walked to Dimitri. “If you’re having difficulty sleeping, you can stay with me tonight. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Dimitri allowed himself to be wordlessly led to the bed. He didn’t lie down though. He sat bolt upright, his claws picking at the covers what lay over his legs. Dedue felt strange lying down when Dimitri wasn’t, so he sat as well, leaning back against the headboard. 

They would be sharing a bed that night. The realization washed over Dedue in waves. He would be unconscious and prone next to the creature who had not so long ago threatened to kill Dedue if he stayed more than one night in this manor. But now he was no creature. Dimitri was a man, no matter how Dedue looked at it, and Dedue felt no danger or fear from being near him. Instead of focusing on any possible threat, Dedue was instead noticing how Dimitri also slept only in a comfortable set of pants and no shirt. The fur covering his body afforded Dimitri a bit more modesty than Dedue could claim for himself, but Dedue was still hyper aware of the proximity of their two bare bodies.

“Tonight’s nightmare was different,” Dimitri said abruptly. The reminder of why Dimitri was actually in Dedue’s bed made him feel guilty for the thoughts that had just been running through his head. “Usually I dream of the death of my father, and everyone who was assassinated along with him. The scene will play out just as it did in real life, over and over again. Sometimes I will dream that I see the ghost of my father, who is disgusted and disappointed in me.”

“That’s awful,” Dedue said. “I can sympathize. I still sometimes have nightmares about the massacre of my village as well, though I’m lucky enough that they do not plague me every night.”

“As I said, tonight’s nightmare was different. I dreamed of the slaughter at Duscur that followed my father’s death. I dreamed…” Dimitri paused and looked up from where he had been picking at the covers. He looked Dedue square in the eye. “I dreamed you died there, Dedue, as a boy. I wasn’t there to save you and you died horribly. The gore was… And we never even met. I knew, in that dream way where you understand certain things to be true, that I would still grow up to be cursed and so incredibly lonely and you would never come to stay at my manor.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “It was a horrible dream. That is why I came to your bedchambers. I know it is foolish, but I had to make sure you were still alive.”

Dedue placed his hand over Dimitri’s. “I’m here. I’m alive. It was only a nightmare, You Highness.”

Dimitri sighed in a way that made Dedue’s heart break.

“Dimitri,” he said. “Please call me Dimitri. We are friends now, aren’t we?”

_ I’m in love with you _ , Dedue thought. 

It was the first time those exact words had come into his head, but as soon as they were there, he knew it to be true. Even without the word “love,” the feelings the word described had been growing for some time. Every quiet, domestic meal taken together; every evening spent by the fire; every time they toiled on a project together; whenever Dedue noticed that Dimitri was looking healthier and was taking the time to look after himself; affection filled Dedue near to the bursting point.  _ Perhaps I’ve been falling in love with you since we were children. _

But Dedue did not say any of that. Instead he said, “ _ Dimitri _ . Yes, we are friends.”

Dimitri rested his head on Dedue’s shoulder. Dedue wanted to turn his head, bury it in Dimitri’s hair and inhale his scent. He wanted to kiss him on the forehead, just once, just softly. But he didn’t. Instead he went to sleep.

Dedue woke the next morning still sitting back against the headboard, but felt only slightly sore from it. He could feel the morning sunlight filtering in from the window and dancing across the backs of his eyelids. But even more acutely, he could feel the weight of Dimitri curled in his lap, the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he slept on. Dedue allowed himself to rest in that half awake state for a moment, his eyes still closed as he felt the warmth of the sun and and a companion’s body on his sleepy limbs.

Then he blinked open his eyes.

  


Burrowed into his lap, lying in Dedue’s arms, was a man. A human. It was Dimitri, the boy he remembered now all grown up. He was scarred now, more battered than he had been in his youth, but his peaceful expression in sleep was breathtaking. His golden hair shone in the morning light. He was gorgeous, but more than that, he was finally himself. Dedue could feel the backs of his eyes prickling, with intense longing, with happiness for how Dimitri would feel when he saw himself in the mirror this morning. Dedue swept a lock of hair away from Dimitri’s forehead and tucked it behind his ear. Dimitri’s nose wrinkled at the ticklish sensation. He turned his head and opened his eye to look up at Dedue, calm and unperturbed in the peaceful morning air.

Dedue merely blinked and the man in his lap was a lion once more. The sudden change startled him. Dedue blinked again, then again, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Had his sleep-addled brain merely imagined that he saw the man Dimitri would have been? But no. He had felt his blond hair, human hair, so different from the texture of a lion’s mane. He had tucked it behind a human ear.

“Is something the matter?” Dimitri sat up beside Dedue. “Are you alright?”

Dedue could not imagine how devastated Dimitri would be if he knew that he had been human as he slept, only to become an animal once more when he awoke. So he lied. “I’m perfectly fine, Your Highness. I mean - Dimitri. Were you able to sleep well?”

Dimitri frowned, a wrinkle appearing between where eyebrows would have been on his human form. “I was able to sleep well, actually. Better than I have in ages. But I startled you. You did not expect to find a beast in your bed when you awoke.”

“That’s not it, I promise.” Dedue moved to card his hand comfortingly through Dimitri’s mane, as he had done many times by this point, but Dimitri shifted away before they could touch. Dedue let his hand fall back into his lap. “Do you not believe me?”

“I believe you are too kind to say as much.” Dimitri climbed out of bed. Dedue felt his absence more harshly than he should have, seeing as they were still in the same room together. But suddenly it seemed as if they were an ocean apart.

“Why are you so insistent that I should fear you?” Dedue asked. “I haven’t since the first night we met.”

“You can say as much, and perhaps mean it, too.” Dimitri looked out the window, perhaps purposefully putting his back towards Dedue. “But I am aware of what I look like. I know it is alarming. A lion in your bed would be frightening enough, but I am no lion. I am a horrible, mismatched creation that is neither fully man nor fully animal. The only thing I know I am, fully, is a monster. Last night I insisted you were my friend, and you accepted that declaration with your usual grace, but-”

“Dimitri, don’t.”

“But we could never really be friends.”

Dedue got out of bed and walked to the window, gently turning Dimitri so that they faced each other. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe a straightforward friendship was never what fate had in store for us.”

Dimitri looked up at Dedue then, expression defiant. “Tell me, then, what you truly think of me. Bluntly. I’d rather know than be tortured by feigned civility.”

“I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Dimitri went stock still. “You mock me.”

“I do not!”

But Dimitri wasn’t listening any longer. He tore away from Dedue’s loose grip on his shoulders and began stalking back and forth across the room with an agitated snarl on his face. “You have teased me before, but never so cruelly. I have never known you to be malicious. You realized my own feelings and you mock me for them!”

“Your own…” Dedue took in a shuddering breath. “Dimitri, do you feel the same way I do?”

Dimitri turned on Dedue then, ferociously angry. “I would have never so much as mentioned it, you know! I would have never forced my feelings onto you because I know they are abhorrent, that my wishes can never be fulfilled! I should have hoped you would have had the good manners to ignore them as well.”

“I don’t know what I can do to convince you that I’m telling the truth!” Dedue exclaimed. “Dimitri, you’re a wonderful, brave, passionate, sincere man and I utterly adore you.”

“I’d rather you were lying than telling the truth,” Dimitri spat. “Because if you were being genuine, if you truly held me in such a regard, then you would be just as cursed as I am. And I would not have you cursed to love a beast such as myself.”

Dimitri turned and threw open the door to leave.

“Dimitri, please,” Dedue called out.

Dimitri turned only slightly and spoke to Dedue over his shoulder, “I think it is time for you to leave this place. You have overstayed your welcome.”

Dedue clenched his teeth. “And what if I disagree? What if I refuse to go?”

Dimitri didn’t answer. He only left the room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

Their argument took place just after the sun had risen. They did not see each other for the rest of the day. Dedue spent his time in the kitchen, cooking and baking whatever recipes popped into his mind. He did this partially because working in the kitchen, angrily kneading dough especially, was a wonderful way to relieve his frustration. Getting to eat his favorite foods at the end of it all was a welcome comfort as well. But Dedue also secretly hoped that by staying in the kitchen, he would eventually see Dimitri when he snuck in to eat. But Dimitri didn’t come, which probably meant that Dimitri didn’t eat all day. As the hour grew later and later, Dedue began to wonder if he was scaring Dimitri away from food by lingering in the kitchen so long. Guilt warred with his annoyance at Dimitri for being petulant.

He was just considering whether he should leave the kitchen for a bit so Dimitri could eat alone if he wished, when a knock came on the back door. Mercedes usually stopped by around the same time every week, so her arrival shouldn’t have come as a shock to Dedue, but he had been too distracted to remember.

“Wow, you certainly went on a spree today!” Mercedes said when she came in, looking around in awe at all the various dishes and baked goods that now lay out on every available counter space. “Good thing I brought more ingredients! It looks like you used up every scrap of what you already had.”

“I might have been a bit overenthusiastic, I’ll admit.” Dedue ushered Mercedes into her usual chair and began making up a plate of goodies for her. “I’m glad you arrived when you did. I’ll need your help eating all this.”

“Really? Now that Dimitri seems to have his appetite back, I would have expected that he could eat all this in one sitting.” Mercedes laughed to herself. “And you’re no twig yourself, Dedue. You need plenty of food to keep you going with all the restoration you’ve been doing around the manor.”

“There is more than enough to go around.” Dedue sat across from Mercedes, along with his own plate and a mug of tea. “Besides, I doubt Dimitri will be eating much today. He’s in a mood.”

“Oh, I know how he can get. Though those ‘moods’ of his have been much less frequent since you came.” Mercedes stops mid-sip from her mug. “Hey! You called him Dimitri! No more ‘His Highness’ this and ‘His Highness’ that?”

Dedue sighed thoughtfully as he chewed a hunk of fresh bread. It was delicious, but that alone wasn’t enough to lift his spirits. “He asked me to last night, but then we fought this morning. I’m not sure if he would still want me to call him by his name now.”

“You fought?” Mercedes sounded genuinely concerned. “But you usually get along so well.”

Dedue only nodded. “He told me to leave.”

Her eyebrows shot about half way up her forehead. “ _ Really? _ Did he give a reason?”

Dedue figured there was no point in keeping the truth from Mercedes. “I told him I love him and he refused to believe me. He thought I was mocking him and became angry. Then I became angry that he would not believe me. We haven’t spoken since.”

Mercedes hummed thoughtfully. “I thought your feelings might be leaning that direction, but I wasn’t certain. You’re a sweet man, Dedue, and you have a lot of love to give. But - and I mean this in the most compassionate way possible - are you sure that love is best placed in Dimitri’s hands? I don’t mean because of his appearance. I mean that you came here and have done nothing but help him, and then Dimitri tells you to leave at the first sign of trouble between you. Have you considered you might be too good for someone like him?”

“Dimitri has said the same thing to me,” Dedue said. “Multiple times, actually. He’ll say that he’s taking advantage of my kindness by letting me repair his roof, even though he’s right alongside me, hammering away. He’ll say he doesn’t deserve my goodness when I cook for him, even though he’s given me companionship and a place to stay. He’ll say I don’t need to bother myself with him when I tend to his wounds, even though he is the one who saved my life when we were young.”

Mercedes looked surprised at that admission, but she didn’t interrupt, so Dedue continued. “I have to say, I never thought I would hear anyone ever tell me that I’m too good for a prince. But you and Dimitri are both wrong if you assume that all I do is look after him while he does nothing for me in return. Simply being near him, speaking with him, watching him slowly heal his body and his mind… I can hardly explain how it makes me feel. I still have my own pain, my own scars. Everyone who survived the massacre at Duscur does. But seeing Dimitri heal himself, being able to talk about these things with him, makes me feel healed as well. I feel safe with him in a way I haven’t felt safe in years. I know that may sound strange, if you only consider the claws and the teeth, but…”

“It doesn’t sound strange,” Mercedes reassured him. “It sounds completely natural.”

“If I truly believed Dimitri didn’t feel the same way I do, I would leave him alone. But this morning, when we argued he seemed so... I think Dimitri and I need each other. I’ve been traveling ever since my village was destroyed. I’ve never felt like I had a home after that. Now I do, and I don’t want to lose it.”

A slow smile bloomed on Mercedes’ face. “We’ve been having these weekly teas together for a while now, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so many words together. This subject has you feeling quite impassioned, does it?”

Dedue could feel his face heating. “I suppose it must.”

“I have to say, you’ve thoroughly convinced me,” Mercedes said. “I know you don’t need my blessing, but you have it anyway. I’ve seen what Dimitri was like before and what he is like now. The change in him is remarkable. If that happiness is something that you can give each other, then I’m glad.”

“After this morning, I’m not so sure if it will be as easy as all that,” Dedue admitted. “But I will try.”

Mercedes left soon after that, as it would be getting dark soon, and she took a large bundle of the food Dedue made home for herself and her brother. As Dedue was washing up their dirty dishes, he caught sight of Dimitri out of the corner of his eye. He was standing silently in the doorway, watching Dedue, as if waiting to be noticed.

“Dimitri,” Dedue said. “Or, is it ‘Your Highness’ again?”

“It’s Dimitri,” he said. “For you, it will always be Dimitri.”

A foolish hope fluttered in Dedue’s chest. “Come in and eat. I made plenty, and you must be hungry.”

Dimitri stepped inside, but he didn’t take up a plate of food as he normally would. “I apologize. I was listening in.”

Dedue set down the dishes he was washing and faced Dimitri. “To my conversation with Mercedes? How much did you hear?”

“Everything. I was about to come eat when Mercedes arrived. Since our last conversation did not go very well, I didn’t want to ruin your tea with Mercedes by coming in and making it awkward. So I stood outside the door and waited for her to leave.” Dimitri expelled a long, slow breath. “I should have left when I heard you begin to talk about me, but I did not. So, yes. I heard everything.”

“And do you believe me now?” Dedue took a step closer to Dimitri and this time Dimitri didn’t try to step away.

“I think I must, after everything you said. It’s odd. I believe it, but I still don’t understand it. Why would you ever…”

Dimitri tried to look away, but Dedue put a hand to his cheek and gently led him back so that they were looking at each other once more. Dedue leaned forward and kissed Dimitri on the forehead, just as he had so longed to do the night before. The fur there was soft and plush under his lips. He kissed the tip of Dimitri’s nose next. It was slightly damp, but not unpleasantly so. Finally he kissed Dimitri gently on the lips. Dimitri didn’t respond. Perhaps he didn’t know how to, with lips that were not meant for human kisses.

“It is not your appearance that is the problem,” Dedue said. “Your own self-hatred is what put a rift between us this morning. Do you see that?”

Dimitri nodded, though the motion of his head was also partially a nuzzle into Dedue’s palm. “I should have believed you in the first place. My disgust at myself overpowered my trust in you, and it shouldn’t have.”

“I wish you weren’t disgusted with yourself to begin with,” Dedue said. “You may not want to speak of this, but I’m going to anyway. I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of your curse recently. Do you know who it was who placed it on you?”

Dimitri shook his head, again pressing his cheek to Dedue’s hand. “The same people who killed my father, I assume.”

“Then you do not know the conditions of the curse either? You do not know how it was placed or how to break it?”

“Clearly not, or I would have attempted to do so.”

“Dimitri, before I tell you this, I want you to know that I have loved you for a long time, long before I told you so this morning,” Dedue said. “But when I awoke this morning, you were a human. Peacefully asleep with no nightmares, you had turned back into yourself. You were blond. You were scarred. You looked happy.”

Dimitri’s face pinched in a frown. “Are you…”

“Do not say this is a jest or that I am mocking you. I never would. Not about something this important. I am not well versed in magic, but I believe that the curse may be…” Dedue paused, trying to think of the best wording. In the end, he couldn’t come up with anything that would soften the blow. “...Self-inflicted.”

Dimitri reeled backward, breaking away from Dedue’s touch. “You believe I would do such a thing to myself?”

“Not consciously! But you are the only survivor of that awful attack on your family. I know how that feels. I know the guilt and the solitude and the anger that inflicts. I think the trauma you’ve endured is simply manifesting in a more… physical way than most.”

“You and I have been through similar experiences, as you just said,” Dimitri asserted. “If your theory is correct, then why am I a beast and you a man?”

“That I do not know. You are a royal, perhaps magic runs more deeply in your bloodline than in mine.” Dedue took Dimitri’s hand and Dimitri let him. “My theory may be nonsense, but even if it is, wouldn’t you like to forgive yourself? Don’t you think it’s time? I know it’s not simple or easy, and there are plenty of days when I’m still so weak with grief that I can’t get out of bed, but if you just give yourself permission to be loved, even if you just work on it little by little, one day at a time…”

“Holding on to all this pain… My mind feels like a muscle straining under a heavy burden,” Dimitri admitted. “I wish I could do what you say. I want to set it down so badly.”

“Wishing and doing are siblings.”

“But my father...” Dimitri’s eye was wet now, full of long unshed tears. “And all the others who died. How can I let them go?”

“Don’t let them go. But don’t you think they would want you to be happy?”

The tears began to fall. Dimitri sagged forward, silently asking to be held. So Dedue held him, and by the time Dedue caught him in his arms Dimitri was a man again. Dedue buried his face in Dimitri’s hair and inhaled his scent, still so familiar despite the transformation.

“Dimitri,” Dedue murmured. “You did it.”

“I know,” Dimitri’s voice was watery.

“I didn’t realize it would be so quick. I thought it could even take years, but…”

Dimitri pushed his face deeper into Dedue’s shoulder. Dedue could feel a slight wetness from where Dimitri was crying on him. “I think this has been a long time coming.”

“Are you happy to be yourself again?”

“Happy and sad. As much as I loathed being a monster, there’s something mournful about losing the self I’d been for so long.” Dimitri tilted his head up to look at Dedue. His eye still glistened, but all the tears he was going to cry had already been shed. “Kiss me?”

Dedue kissed him. It was a real kiss this time, a reciprocated his. Almost as soon as their lips met, Dimitri let out a deep, guttural groan. Dedue would have even called it animalistic if he hadn’t already known what an animalistic noise from Dimitri really sounded like. Dimitri opened his mouth and made a small whimpering sound the likes of which Dedue had never heard from him before. It was desperate, begging to be kissed deeper, held tighter. Dedue was eager to oblige. He slid his tongue into Dimitri’s mouth and Dimitri sucked on it needily, making Dedue moan his appreciation. By all the gods and goddesses, he had never imagined a prince would kiss like this. Perhaps he could have imagined Dimitri would, though. Dedue tightened his hold, drew Dimitri closer, and felt Dimitri’s thick erection press against him.

Dedue pulled away from the kiss, though Dimitri tried his best to chase his mouth. “That was quick.

Dimitri’s cheeks were pink, his gaze still glossy but now also very clearly filled with lust. “My apologies. It is only, I have wanted you for so long. Ever since that bath when you… And I have been a beast for my entire adult life. No one has ever touched me like this before.  _ Please _ keep touching me like this.”

Dedue thought of the day Dimitri had had. The argument this morning, painful conversation just now, the tears, and now this. “Are you sure now is the best time?”

“Please don’t make me wait any longer.” Dimitri was actually begging him. “The feeling of being wanted is so intoxicating. Please take me to bed.”

Dedue could feel his own cock hardening at those words, that expression, the raw need in Dimitri’s voice. “Only if you promise to let me know how you’re feeling the whole time, to tell me if I need to stop. I promise I will be gentle with you.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be.”

Dedue furrowed his eyebrows. “I will be gentle regardless.”

They went to Dedue’s bedroom and resumed kissing as soon as the door was closed behind them. Dedue was able to make quick work of Dimitri’s clothes, especially now that they were a little loose in his human form. Soon Dimitri was entirely naked, his hand gripping helplessly at Dedue’s shirt without the presence of mind to try to remove it. Dedue didn’t mind one bit.

“Lie back back on the bed for me, Dimitri.”

Dimitri scrambled to do as told. This was the first time Dedue was seeing Dimitri properly naked, without the fur to preserve his modesty. He was surprised by how much of Dimitri’s body was already familiar to him. The lines of his torso, the strength of his muscles, the placement of his scars was all the same. But the rosy blush that ran up his chest, all the way to his ears was new. The tousled blond hair, messy from where Dedue has gripped it as they kissed, was new. Those kiss-plumped lips, slick and parted over panting breaths, were new. And Dedue had never seen Dimitri’s cock before.

It was beautiful, thick and veined and already dripping with precum. Dedue positioned himself between Dimitri’s legs, leaned forward, and licked a thick bead of it from the tip of Dimitri’s cock. Dimitri threw his head back and cried out with a near tortured sound. He tried to buck into Dedue’s mouth, but Dedue drew back.

“Too much?” Dedue asked. It had only been a little lick, but it was also the first time anyone had touched between Dimitri’s legs besides Dimitri himself.

“Almost,” Dimitri panted. “It was almost too much, but I still want more. I won’t last, though.”

“I don’t care how long you last,” Dedue assured him. “I only care that you feel good. I’ll continue, but tell me if you need me to stop.”

Dedue lowered himself again and placed a soft kiss on his cockhead. Dimitri whimpered and bucked again. To keep him still, Dedue lay one forearm across Dimitri’s hips and held firm. Dimitri gasped.

“You like being held down?”

“I’m not used to being matched in my own strength,” Dimitri said. “It’s exhilarating. You might not be able to hold me, though. I’m very strong.”

“You better try to control yourself, then.”

Dedue held Dimitri’s cock in place with his free hand and began laying wet, sucking, open mouthed kisses down his shaft. Dimitri still bucked a little, but Dedue could tell he was trying to restrain himself now.  _ Good boy _ , he thought to himself. He licked a stripe up the vein running along the underside of Dimitri’s cock and, once he was sure Dimitri was used to the sensation of having a mouth on him, Dedue wrapped his lips around the head and sucked.

“ _Aah!_ _Fuck!_ ” Dimitri cried out so loudly that Dedue found himself relieved that the manor was in the middle of nowhere. “Dedue, yes! I mean, _please_! I can’t-!”

Dimitri was bucking his hips again, but Dedue didn’t pull back or try to stop it this time. Instead he loosened his jaw and let his senses be overtaken by Dimitri, the taste of him on his tongue and down his throat, the scent of him in his nostrils. Fuck, this was everything. Dedue wanted him so badly. 

With every thrust came a desperate little moan from Dimitri, sometimes forming words like “ _ Oh, shit! _ ” or “ _ Dedue! _ ” or even on one occasion, “ _ Love you! _ ” He fucked up into Dedue’s mouth frantically and before long Dimitri was cumming hard down his throat. Dedue swallowed as much as he could while Dimitri road out his orgasm against Dedue’s tongue. When Dedue had finally milked every last drop from him, he lifted his head to look at Dimitri. The prince’s chest was heaving and he looked even more red faced than he had before. He was also watching Dedue’s every move.

“How was your first time?” Dedue asked.

“Was?” Dimitri’s voice was still breathy. “It’s not over yet. Why are you still clothed? Get over here.”

Dedue crawled up the bed until he hovered over Dimitri. Dimitri quickly undid the buttons of Dedue’s shirt. As soon as his chest was exposed, Dimitri reached out and ran his hands reverently over the newly uncovered flesh.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Dimitri said. “You always have been, I saw it right when we first met.”

Dedue was about to respond that Dimitri was gorgeous as well, except that Dimitri dragged him down into a hard kiss just then and all other thoughts quickly fled Dedue’s mind. 

“What can I do for you?” Dimitri asked between kisses. “Can I do the same for you? I’d love to suck you. Or do you want to be inside me? Or, if you give me a few minutes I could be inside of you. Anything you wish. I want it all with you.”

As much as hearing Dimitri say “I would love to suck you,” made Dedue’s cock throb, he shook his head. “This is your first time and you’re already exhausted from your orgasm. Let’s take things slow. We’ll have time to try all of the other things later.”

Dimitri looked utterly crestfallen.

“But what can I do for you right now?” Dimitri rested a hand on Dedue’s crotch, gently rubbing back and forth over Dedue’s erection. Dedue bit his lip hard against the sensation. “It looks like you need some relief.”

“Just like that,” Dedue gasped. “With your hand. You feel good, I can come just like this.”

Dedue lay down next to Dimitri, both of them facing the other. Rather than continuing through the fabric, Dimitri undid Dedue’s pants and pulled out Dedue’s cock. He let out a sharp intake of breath when he saw it.

“I must admit,” Dimitri said. “I spent many guilty nights imagining what you might look like, but the reality of it is better.”

Dimitri wrapped his hand around Dedue and began jerking him off with a firm, steady rhythm. He was good at this, though the mechanics of it were hard to get wrong. The entire time the two of them kept their eyes locked on each other. Dedue could feel Dimitri’s gaze on him like a physical presence, hungrily watching for every bob of Dedue’s throat, every bite of his lip, every minute expression of pleasure that crossed his face. The feeling of being loved and wanted so deeply was overwhelming. Dedue couldn’t stand it anymore. He gripped Dimitri’s face with both hands and kissed him fiercely, devouring him as he came hard in Dimitri’s fist. Dimitri’s mouth met his with just as much intensity. Their lips and tongues and breath met again and again, long after the final echoes of Dedue’s orgasm were through.

“We should clean up,” Dedue murmured against Dimitri’s mouth.

“I’d prefer to stay like this a bit longer,” Dimitri responded.

“Only because you enjoy being filthy.”

“I do not enjoy it,” Dimitri objected. “But I do not object to it as much as you do.”

“Perhaps I could entice you to take a bath with me?”

Dimitri pulled back and looked at Dedue with a raised eyebrow. “Will we both fit in the tub? Neither of us are small men.”

“We will see,” Dedue said. “But I will allow us a few more minutes in bed. I will admit that I do not trust my legs not to shake at the moment.”

Dimitri tucked himself into Dedue’s chest. “You are a benevolent lover indeed.”

They lay like that for a while, Dedue idly stroking Dimitri’s hair. Eventually, Dedue asked, “What do you plan to do, now that you are human again? Will you let people know you are not dead? You could take your place as king, if you wish. Or, if you prefer the solitary life you have here, that should be easy enough to maintain as well.”

“I’m afraid that’s all a bit much for me to consider at the moment.”

“Right. Of course.” Dedue felt a bit embarrassed for even bringing it up. “All you need tonight is rest.”

“There is one other thing I need,” Dimitri admitted. “I need you to stay in my arms.”

So he did.


End file.
